China's politically sensitive trade surplus expanded to $22.27 billion in June, rising sharply from the previous month as the value of exports hit a record high, government data showed Sunday. The trade surplus - a major point of tension for China's key trade partners, the United States and Europe - outstripped May's $13.05 billion surplus and an economists' forecast for $14.3 billion.
"A monthly wider trade surplus due to lower global prices is understandable, and there is nothing to worry about," HSBC economist Qu Hongbin told Dow Jones Newswires. Export growth slowed 17.9 percent year-on-year to $161.98 billion - still at a record high for a single month based on previous data, the General Administration of Customs said in a statement. Imports rose at a slower-than-expected 19.3 percent on-year to $139.71 billion.
A Dow Jones Newswires survey of 14 economists had predicted a 19.2 percent rise in exports from a year earlier and June imports to expand 26.8 percent on-year.
For the first six months of the year, China's trade surplus fell 18.2 percent compared to the first half of 2010 to $44.93 billion, the customs agency said.
Total foreign trade value topped $1.7 trillion in the first half of 2011, rising 25.8 percent on-year. Exports rose 24 percent to $874.3 billion. Imports climbed 27.6 percent to $829.37 billion.
June's slowing exports could help ease concerns that China's currency is being kept artificially low handing it an unfair trade advantage.
China's boon from low export prices had been hurt by yuan appreciation and higher domestic costs, Zheng Yuesheng, director of the customs agency's statistics department told reporters in Beijing on Sunday.
He warned China's trade growth faced increased pressure from a "slow global economic recovery full of uncertainties," the lingering euro zone debt crisis and the unstable political situation in the Middle East and north Africa. March's earthquake in Japan also set back trade between the two countries, Zheng said.
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